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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



How to Plant the 
Home Grounds 



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PRICE, 10 CENTS 



Beautiful America Leaflet No. 2 
Issued by The Ladies' Home Journal 



libraky vj* congress 

Two Copies Received 

MAR 25 1904 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS «■ XXc, No 

COPY 3 



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Beautiful America Leaflet No. 2 
Issued by The Ladies' Home Journal 



Price, 10 cents 



How to Plant the Home 
Grounds 




HE following hints — and that is all they are — on home 
planting presume that the preliminary work of clearing 
up has been done. While planting will conceal an ash- 
heap, a dump, a bad fence, an unpleasant out-building, 
It ought rather to take the place of such unnecessary 
things about the home. Let us clean up, as much as 
possible, planting for honest adornment and the joy of 
having beautiful homes in a beautiful America, rather 
than to conceal our lack of neatness or cleanliness. 

These hints, moreover, will not take the place of the 
suggestions and plans of the landscape architect, who 
should be consulted by all those with the larger problems 
to solve. They are intended to suggest a right start for 
the smaller home grounds, to prescribe helpfully for the 
city lot, back yard or home fence-corner, and for the im- 
mediate home grounds elsewhere; but not to lay down laws for the improvement 
of large areas, where the contour and situation call for special treatment by the 
landscape architect. 

The saving touch of greenery at least, and the refreshment of flowers usually, 
can be had anywhere in America, from Florida to British Columbia, regardless 
of sun, cold, soil or exposure. Something will grow everywhere to beautify the 
home grounds. Only knowledge and discrimination as to what to plant, and a 
little care as to how, are required, with a reasonable interest to maintain proper 
growing conditions afterward. 

1. A Plan Desirable. Begin right, by making a plan to a definite scale of 
your home grounds, however small. This may be a mere outline sketch, allowing 
say a half-inch or an inch to each foot of the actual dimensions. Locate everything 
— the house, the fence, the out-buildings, the entrances. This plan will show the 
hoine grounds as you would see them looking down from a balloon suspended fifty 



Copyright, IQ04, by The Curtis Publiihing Company 




Fig. t. Showing tiie ePFect of 
having lawn trees, shrubs, walks, 
etc., arranged in straight lines. 







Fig. 2. Showing the advantage 
of placing the features of the lawn 
in irregular order and employing 
curves. Note the open spaces. 



or a hundred feet directly above. After it is filled 
in, your plan will probably look something like 
Figures i or 2. 

2. Consider the Planting. On the plan, there 
will have been located any existing trees, plants 
or vines, and the work to a considerable extent 
will center around these. Are they now located 
where they are doing most for the home ? Be 
careful about removing entirely any established 
growths; it is easier to cut down than to replace. 
Sometimes a tree or plant may need to be moved 
to another situation ; sometimes it is hopelessly 
wrong for the place and must be altogether taken 
out. One efficient, well-placed tree or shrub is 
worth a dozen that are crowded, sickly or ill- 
placed. 

3. Simplicity Desirable. Often the unguided 
feeling for improvement leads to a mixed-up or 
complex design, and to indiscriminate, crowded 
planting. By all means, have the home grounds 
planned for simplicity. I remember a dooryard 
in which the home-owner had been persuaded by a 
tree agent to set out a dozen Kilmarnock willows, 
spaced at regular distances, and making, as they 
grew, a grotescjue and absurd travesty of a proper 
home arrangement. One little corner arrangement 
of a clematis and some hardy plants is far better, as 
in Figure 3; and much lawn with few shrubs is by 
far preferable to an expensively crowded home area, 

4. Do Not Imitate Without Reason. To see 
a home lot well planted somewhere n^ay excite a 
desire — and a proper one — for equally beautiful 
planting; but it is not necessary to imitate. Fre- 
quently the admired place is in a totally different 
situation, using perhaps plants that are not best for 
your home grounds. By all means, choose such 
plants and trees as are acclimated and adapted to 
your own home. 

5. Open Spaces of Grass. Nothing so adds 
to the restful character of the home grounds as 
an open space of turf, be it ever so small. Even 
the space of two yards square (but not laid out 

[4I 



square, by any means!) in clean grass will be far superior in effect to the same space 
jammed with plants. I have a friend who has his twenty-foot dooryard so disposed 
as to make it look park-like, and far larger than it really is. He does it (a) by 
maintaining a little bit of lawn, and (b) by planting the profusion of flowers he 
always has in simple borders. Figures i and 2 show how the same space may be 
crowded or open, according to its poor or proper arrangement, and the open areas 
for grass are seen to ap- 
pear at once in Figure 2. 

6. Avoid Straight 
Lines. Nature has little 
use in her work for "the 
shortest distance between 
two points." Our home- 
grounds are u s uia 1 1 y 
bounded by a rectangle, 
and that affords straight- 
ness enough. Judicious 
curves help greatly in 
making beautiful home- 
grounds, and they afford 
natural places for groups 
of plants or small trees, 
as well. Refer again to 
Figures i and 2 for evi- 
dence as to curves. 
Plants themselves avoid 
the straight-edge, and 
will, if left alone, soon 
open out into grace, and 
get away from the un- 
necessary and unnatural 
direct line. But curves 
without reason are mere 
wiggles, and thus worse 
than the severely straight 
disposition. Figures 4 
and 5 contrast the bad and the better arrangement, and the walk from the front in 
Figure 2 also shows a desirable curve. 

7. Slopes, Rather than Terraces. If your home-yard rises sharply from the 
highway, a proper access must be had. A terrace is a step cut in the ground. 
Necessary occasionally for a considerable ascent, it is always difficult to keep in order. 
Nature slopes all her banks; let us use slopes if possible. Sometimes careful grad- 

[5J 




Fig. 3. A little corner arrangement of Clematis paniculata and 
some hardy plants 



v^if 






ing will bring the last steep slope or rise next the house, and there we may use steps 
to the entrance, securing in the rest of the slope a great chance for effective planting 
of vines — honeysuckle will cover any bank ; multi- 
flora, Wichuraiana or rugosa roses; matrimony vine, 
wistaria, trumpet vine, dutchman's pipe, and a dozen 
others, all hardy and permanent, will make a steep 
slope a thing of beauty. 

8. Plan and Plant Appropriately. To be attracted 
by a stately elm in perfection after a generation's 
growth in a park, and therefore to plant an elm in a 
little dooryard, is a mistake not infrequently made. 
To make the best of the space at command, we must 
plant to suit it, considering (a) the space we have, 
(b) the exposure to the sun, (c) the character of the 
soil, and (d) the ultimate size of the tree or plant of 
which we are enamored. Figure 6 shows how an 
unwholesome crowding resulted from lack of consider- 
ation of the last item. Again, if it is a tree you are 
planting, consider carefully its mature shape — whether 
it makes a rounded head, or one that is pyramidal, or 
resembling an inverted cone. The grand elms of New 
England are of the latter shape, while a sugar maple 
takes up more room below. See Figures 7 and 8 for 
examples, and note that shrubs also have a definite 



r 

k 






o 



Fig. 4. 

A series 
of charac- 
terless ser- 
p e n t i n e 
curves. 




Fig. 5. 
Pleasing curves, 
, ^1 ui .> ^ • ■ i^- because the bends 

shape, not always amenable to training. figure 9 vary considerably in 

shows a Deutzia gracilis that was not calculated for, with the *'^^- 
result that the teams coming to the house continually bother it. Figure 10 shows 
an adequate provision for the Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora (it is strange 
that this universal shrub has not been common-named!) along the walk. 

9. The Small Dooryard. As previously in- 
sisted, the smallest space can be planted, any- 
where. About the door, vines can be grown; 
a ten-inch hole is all that is needed for the su- 
perb Boston ivy [Ampelopsis Veitchii), and little 
more will be required for the Japan honeysuckle. 
Both will gradually work above the shade and 
revel in the sun. With a little more sun, a Crim- 
son Rambler rose will thrive. If hopelessly shady, 
and with but little space, have use of the hardy 
ferns; they will get along without any sun at all, 
and lily-of-the-valley (bulbous, planted in au- 
tumn) will bloom among the ferns, before the 

[6] 





^. W' ^j^' 



Fig. 6. The small evergreens 
seemed far enough from the walk when 
they were planted, but six years of 
growth showed the raistalte. 




Fig. 7. The heaviest growth in 
the bottom branches ; hence not 
well suited for street planting, 
where long trunks are desirable. 



S«fe-.., 



Fig. 8. The heaviest growth 
at the top, inducing the tree to 
have a high trunk; hence well 
suited for street planting. 



fronds unfold. Figure ii 
shows how ferns will 
brighten a little strip at 
the porch edge, and these 
stood the rain drip, too. 
Pansies will bloom in 
partial shade; so will St. 
John's-wort, and our 
superb mountain laurel 
will enliven a spot that is 
nearly sunless. Of course 
the hardy bulbs will 
bloom in shady places — 
the hyacinths, the tulips 
and narcissi, the crocuses 
and snowdrops. These, 
too, can be planted un- 
der tree shade, for their bloom is nearly over before the leaves come. 

But our dooryard or back yard may be sunny, and not shaded. The vines will 

grow, and more of them — trumpet vine, wistaria, the clematises, the annual 

hyacinth bean, and very many others. The fine blue spirea, which is not a 

spirea at all, will fairly 

glow in the sunshine; 

the hardy phlox will give 

richest coloring and a 

splendid showing all the 

late summer. The deut- 

zias, spireas, weigelas 

and hj'drangeas will do 

superbly, and the golden 

wands of the forsythia 

will open in earliest 

spring. 

Is it sandy in the 

yard, as along the sea- 
coast? Sunflowers and 

hypericums will grow; 

the vincas or periwinkles 

will fairly cover them- 
selves with bloom ; the 

lovely little portulacas 

will defy both sand and Fig. 9. Deutzia gracilis planted too near the drive 

[7] 





Fig. 10. Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora planted in its proper 
place well back from the walk 



sun ; blazing star and 
cobea will bloom. For 
rocks, there are scores 
of plants; campanulas, 
the exquisite moss-pink, 
the sweet daphne, the 
hardy cactuses. For 
heavy clay many hardy 
plants are available ; the 
lilac, the altheas, the 
columbine , the gas 
plant, the lovely forget- 
me-not. There are an- 
nuals of merit also for 
clay, including sweet 
peas and zinnias. 

10. A Natural Plan 
for the Larger Areas. 



All that has been said of the dooryard applies to the larger grounds, and more, 
for here may be planted the shrubs of more robust growth, as well as smaller trees. 
I can suggest no better way to improve and plan a suburban lot, a small country 
home, the farmhouse flower-garden, than to propose careful consideration of the 
plants and trees native to the neighborhood. In a certain city a well-planted yard 
on a prominent street shows for three midsummer weeks a superb rose-mallow in 
bloom, always attracting attention; yet, within two miles of the spot, five acres of 
the same plant bloom almost unseen, and tens of thousands of "commuters" see — or 
don't see! — hundreds of acres softly aglow with the satne rose-mallow as they cross 
the Hackensack marshes daily! How much better to individualize these plants of 
the neighborhood, sure to do well, than to work only with the monotony of gera- 
nium, coleus, canna and verbena! A few trips to the woods and meadows nearest the 
home — and I have purposely spoken of beautiful but common flowers seen near to 
the greatest congestion of urban population in tlie United States, having also 
seen many lovely wild things in bloom close to the smoke of Chicago — will give 
suggestions worth while. 

11. Plant for Succession of Bloom and Interest. The proper home-garden 
should show sometliing interesting every day from snow to snow, from crocus to 
chrysanthemum. Often there is a fine burst of spring bloom followed by a lack of 
flowers in the summer months. This need not be, for, with care in selection, some- 
thing attractive can be had all the growing season. Even with purely hardy plants 
this may be arranged, and it is quite easy if some of the good annuals are also 
included. A few suggestions follow; they should be considered in connection with 
the remarks as to location and conditions found in section 9. 

IS] 



12. For Spring Bloom. 'I'liis list is made purposely sparse, as in every locality 
the spring provides a profusion of flowers. 

Bulbs, planted the autumn before; hardy, and may be left in the ground; 
other plants may follow them as foliage dies away: Snowdrops, crocus, squills, 
early and late tulips, hyacinths of many kinds (may freeze if unprotected in the 
far North), daffodils, and other narcissi; and for shaiiy places trilliums, dog's- 
tooth violets, lily-of-the-valley. 

Hardy Lo^v-jirotuing Plants, set the autumn before if possible: Moss-pink, 
columbines, sweet-williams, clove pinks, dwarf and German iris; and for shade, 
blue phlox, spring beauty, bluets, Virginia cowslip, toothwort, moccasin flow- 
ers, dutchman's breeches, hepatica, bloodroot; many ferns; English daisy, hardy 
primroses, periwinkle. 

Shrubs and Larger Plants: Forsythia, Deutzia gracilis, early spireas, peonies, 
bleeding-heart. Oriental poppies, lychnis, Japanese and Siberian iris, many lilacs, 
spice-bush, mock orange, many roses, snowballs and other viburnums, dogwoods, 
Aveigelas, bush honeysuckles, elders, the smaller magnolias; also, good but less 
hardy, tamarix, Japan quince, jasminum, Azalea mollis and amoena. 

Trees, especially small trees suited for laivns: Double-flowering apples, 
wild crab, Chinese crab, Siberian crab, magnolias, white dogwood, hawthorns, 
yellow-wood, red-bud, Japan tree lilac, koelreuteria. 

13. For Midsummer and Early Fall. This is the time when bloom is likely 
to be scarce, and the planting ought to be carefully worked out 




fig I 1. Hardy ferns growing luxuriantly in front of the porch in tiie shade 

[9] 



Bulbs, not hardy over winter, planted early and in several successive plantings 
(except the hardy lilies, which should go into the ground the autumn previous) : 
Gladioli, tigridias and tuberoses; many fine hardy lilies. Dahlias are superb till 
frost (tuberous roots, planted in spring). 

Hardy Herbs, Shrubs and Plants, planted early in same season: Hollyhocks, 
perennial sunflowers, Golden Glow and other rudbeckias, monardas, cardinal 
flower (in wet places), American rhododendrons (in shady places, not in limestone 
soil), late spireas, achilleas, tansy, perennial phlox, caryopteris, hemerocallis, fun- 
kias, later canterbury bells and larkspurs, fire-pink, Japan anemones, rose-mallow, 
water-lilies and lotuses (for the aquatic garden), boneset, Joe-pye, black cohosh, 
dwarf horse-chestnut, coreopsis, aconite, purple loosestrife, sumacs, white elder. 

Annuals, grown from seed the same season: Alyssum, candytuft, summer 
chrysanthemums, coreopsis, marigolds, coxcombs, portulacas, annual sunflowers, 
ten-weeks stocks, four-o'clocks, verbenas, clarkia, zinnias, garden asters, Shirley 
poppies, Drummond phlox, dwarf nasturtium, dianthus (perennials and biennials). 

Large Trees that bloon or are otherwise especially attractive: Sweet chestnut, 
tulip or liriodendron, basswood, locust, catalpas, maples, liquidambar. 

14. For Late Fall, until Cut off by Frost, and for Winter. Including some 
fine plants, to round out the season; there are many others. 

Plants : Various hydrangeas, various goldenrods, many fine hardy asters, 
boltonias, hardy chrysanthemums (some of the Japanese varieties become hardy). 

Plants and Trees Attractive in Fall by reason of showy fruits are exceedingly 
useful, and have not been availed of to any great extent; most of them furnish also 
handsome bloom earlier in the season: All the dogwoods, including kinds with 
red, black and blue berries and red bark; snowberry and Indian currant; all the 
viburnums (these are superb both in flower and fruit, and some have foliage that 
colors brilliantly); both American and European mountain ashes; witch-hazel 
blooms about freezing time; foliage and fruit of Thunberg's and the common bar- 
berry, black alder, red-berried alder. 

Plants and Trees Beautiful in IVinter. All the evergreens, especially spruces, 
pines, firs and cedars, and some of the retinosporas (not hardy in the North); 
Japanese and American hollies (not hardy North) ; the various box trees, rhodo- 
dendrons and laurel in other than limestone soil ; euonymus, Mahonias, trees 
with bright bark. 

15. These Lists Are Incomplete. They are intended to start home improvers 
in various parts of America to noting for themselves the trees, shrubs, vines and 
plants that are doing best and covering the longest seasons of usefulness in their 
own neighborhoods. If this inquiry is made, it will undoubtedly result in much 
successful home-ground planting out of the ordinary, and both permanent and 
pleasing. It should be remembered that many herbs and shrubs can be easily 
transplanted from near-by woods and fields, and these are often fully as attractive 
as the garden kinds. Some nurserymen make a specialty of the "wild" plants. 

[loj 



16. Tropical and Tender Plants. It lias been well said that only the very 
rich can afford to adorn the home-grounds with palms and the iiice; yet one sees 
most frequently the plants of ephemeral character— cannas, coleus, geraniums, 
palms, tender ferns, etc. Scarcely a score of species are included in the usual 
round of easily grown and as easily killed plants offered for home adornment by 
the florists; yet I have named at least a hundred hardy plants and vines that give 
greater beauty from time to time, and increase in strength from year to year. 
True, these hardy plants do not bloom continually, but that is one of their 
merits; for it means a 

changing feast of flow- 
ers in the well-planted 
home-yard, and this 
without the elaborate 
and continual attention 
required to keep in 
order the ordinary 
"beds" that are the 
same from July until 
frost. An occasional 
palm or fern as a pet 
plant, to be taken into 
the living-room over 
winter; some of the 
easy-blooming tender 
plants for the window- 
box; heliotropes and 
mignonette and sweet 
alyssum for fragrance 
in the home — these can be cared for to advantage. The main reliance, however, 
should be on hardy plants and vines, needing no recurring annual expense. 

17. Annual Flowers. By these I mean the pansies, balsams, salvias, mari- 
golds, four-o'clocks, garden asters, zinnias, cockscombs, and scores of other beau- 
tiful flowers that give bloom the same season the seed is sown. They fill in the 
gaps while the hardy plants are growing, and have merits of their own. A half 
dollar's worth of seed will do wonders. See the fence-covermg of marvel-of-peru 
in Figure 12, giving bloom for nearly three months, right up to frost, and costing 
just one dime! There are quick-growing annuals that are fine to serve as screens 
for unsightly spots that cannot be removed. Sunflowers, castor beans, cosmos will 
soon shade the ash-barrel. 

18. Plant Vines, Both Hardy and Tender. Perhaps the gospel of vines for the 
home grounds has not been preached with enough vigor in these hints. The vines 
add to all the graces of the standard shrub or plant the final one of ability to creep 

[11] 




Fig. 12. Marvel-of-Peru, or Four-o'clock, makes a beautiful fence 
cover 



or climb. They are beautiful and interesting in growth as well as in bloom. 
Some will creep or climb unaiiled; others require support. Suggestions follow, as 
to adaptability. 

V'uies for the c'tly lioiue, on -zvall or porc/i, are Rambler roses, Wicluiraiana, 
Dawson and multiflora roses (see Figure 13 for a two-year rose effort), Boston ivy, 
English ivy, Virginia creeper. Clematis paniculata (superb) ; Clematis flammula, 
Virginiana, coccinea and crispa, honeysuckles of several sorts, matrimony vine, Akebia 
quinata; all these are hardy and will do in small area. For lustier growth, other 
hardy vines are Chinese wistaria, trumpet creeper, actinidia (a grand thing), 
dutchman's pipe, bitter-sweet. Annuals growing from the seed are morning- 
glories. Scarlet Runner bean, balloon vine, Japanese hop, and many others, not 
forgetting the indispensable sweet pea, which should be planted early. 

Trailers, to cover a bank, include the Wichuraiana and multiflora roses, the 
Japan honeysuckles. Clematis Virginiana, periwinkle, bitter-sweet; and for shady 
places, otherwise bare, use Creeping Charlie, partridge vine, galax; even violets 
will grow. 

19. Have Growing Fences or Hedges, or Cover the Fence with Vines. 
The very best way to take away the hatefulness of a fence is to cover it with some- 
thing beautiful, good for the fencer and the fenced to see. See Figure 12 for a 
cheap and bright fence alleviator. For a hardy hedge, that is a fence in itself, 
plant California privet, Amoor River privet, Japanese quince, several barberries, 
RoLa rugosa, cockspur thorn, altheas. Any of the evergreen honeysuckles will 
make a fine hedge, and the deutzias and spireas are excellent, as are most of the 
viburnums. Any of the climbing annuals will cover a fence, and I am partial to 
the vine of the sweet potato, also. Do not plant evergreen hedges of pine and 
spruce, for they grow too high, and. are hard to restrain without great expense for 
trimming, also spreading too much horizontally. (See Figure 6.) 

20. As to Preparation of Soil. Having discussed plans and plants, we may 
well turn to the ground in which they are to be made effective. Formerly there was 
a great prolixity of directions for the mixing of soils for various plants, and the 
English gardening books give many prescriptions that would be hard to fill. Plants 
have a habit of growing under all sorts of soil conditions; I have seen the peri- 
winkle doing well in heavy soil, and have seen it fairly riot in the Florida white 
sand. To get home results, let us do the best we can; and that means at least the 
thorough stirring of the soil, deep enough to give the plant roots a chance. If }ou 
make it easy for them to penetrate the ground for food and moisture, they will give 
you evidences of that fact in bloom and in growth. 

There are only a few truisms about soils. Very heavy clayey soils need to be 
broken up and made lighter. Coal ashes will do it and sand will do it; a shovel 
and rake must intervene. Turning in deeply loose manure or rotted sods will help 
doubly; planting the various clovers — red and scarlet — will both break up the soil 
and add "humus" if the clovers are then turned in, after growing to the height of 

[12] 



a foot or less. These heavy soils are happiness for some plants; simply tame the 
ground to your needs. In sand, it Is difficult to add the lacking element of clay and 
easier to adapt the planting to the sand. But always the ground can be fully dug 
and pulverized, and that is much. Some rotted sods or manure will add fertility. 

21. Plants Do not Like Wet Feet. Except for the purely aquatic and bog 
plants, water standing about the roots is fatal. Tliat is one reason for thorougii and 
deep digging, and for the addition of lighter material to clay soils — to afford an 
opportunity for the surplus water to pass through. If the home grounds are damp, 
dig deeply and see that there is enough depth and opening to drain the ground of 
superfluous moisture. 

22. Give the Plants a Start with Good Soil. Figures 14 and 15 illustrate this 
point, both as to locatmg a tree or shrub, and as to a vine against the house. To 
put old sods, and old bones as well, at the bottom of these holes, is to provide a 
store of fertility in connection with the good loam that it is best to use around the 
trees or plants. 

23. Planting Hints. Do not set the 
plants deeper than they were in the nursery. 
Plant solidly, firming the ground by tramp- 
ing with the feet, or by the use of a maul. 
This may seem a contradiction, but it isn't; 
we dig and pulverize the soil to break it up 
into small particles; we firm it around the 
plant to keep air away and to bring these 
particles in contact with the roots. Cover 
the ground after planting with some loose 
material, as leaves, sawdust, bagging, sand, 
to keep the sun's rays from too soon and too 
strongly acting upon the roots. 

24. Nearly All Plants and Trees Need 
Trimming When Planted. This is to restore 
the balance between root and top. See Fig- 
ure 16 to know why, and also to know that a 
larger proportion of necessary roots is ob- 
tained with small, thrifty trees than with 
larger ones. Trim carefully, cutting out 
crossing and opposing twigs ; cut close to a 
bud ; use a sharp knife. Trim any torn 
ends of roots, also ; root growth frequently 
starts from these trimmed ends. Do not 
allow the roots to become dry while you are 
preparing the ground or planting; they are 
just as unhappy in the air as a fish. Keep 




Fig. 13. A two-year-old climbing rose 




POOR 
SUB SOIL 



Fig. 14. Providing good soil in v.'hich 
to plant where the land lacks fertility 



the roots in moist ground, or in a puddle of mud, until the moment of planting. 
Plants whose roots have never dried out grow sooner and faster than those that 
have been hurt by the air and the sun acting 
on the parts nature wants covered. 

25. About Watering. On the whole, it is 
best not to water plants, if they have been care- 
fully set in good soil, soaked after planting, 
and provided with a "mulch" to keep off the 
sun's rays for a while. Daily sprinkling of the 
ground is a positive detriment; a weekly soak- 
ing, thoroughly done, is useful in a very dry 
time. The best way to provide water is to keep 
in the soil what h, there for the plant's use by 
constant and thorough cultivation. I know a 
skilful grower of dahlias who yearly sets out 
over fifty acres of those beautiful but water- 
hungry plants on New Jersey sand. He can't water anyway, but he don't want to; 
he does keep the ground always so actively stirred or cultivated as to be dusty, and 
the dust is a good preventive of evaporation from the soil. Hard ground drips water 
upward into the air ; weeds and grass pour it upward. Therefore, cultivate, rather 
than water, under ordinary conditions. 

26. To Make a Lawn. The charm of green grass about the home is admitted, 
and grass surely grows easily. To have it under that form of control which makes 
the result a good lawn, large or small, requires a little care. To begin with, 
there must be good soil, and of uniform depth, if the result is to be even and satis- 
factory. To have small portions of very good or very poor soil makes un- 
sightly spots. If the home lawn is uneven, and if it has in it more grass than 
weeds, the sod should be lifted and the ground put in proper order. This is not 

very difficult; cut the sod in strips about 
fifteen inches wide and four or five feet 
long by striking through with a sharp 
spade, held vertically, using a line to keep 
straight. Then, vyith some one to help, 
cut under the grass at one end of the strip, 
to form a sod about three inches thick, 
or less, thus including most of the roots, 
and turn up the loosened end, rolling it 
with the grass inside, as you would roll 
up a thick rug. Figure 17 shows the 
Idea, and also how to regrade a poor slope 
or an uneven surface. 

With the sod removed, prepare the 

[14] 




Fig. 15. Preparing for vine against the house. 
A, sterile soil; B, pocket of good loam 



^'. 



subsoil by thorough digging, to an even depth, working in a dressing of well- 
rotted manure if obtainable, or if not, some one of the many commercial lawn 
fertilizers. Whatever else you do, be sure thoroughly to mix the whole upper part 
of the ground to an even depth of fully twelve inches. If there are bad spots, 
remove the earth entirely from such, and substitute soil as good as the average. 
Dig, spade, rake, pulverize — make it even all through, and then roll it smooth, 
before relaying the sods. 

In relaying the rolls of sod, join the 
edges smoothly — an old table-knife is a 
good tool to use. Fill in all crevices with 
good soil; pound the sods down with the 
flat of your spade — you cannot have them 
too solid. When all is smooth and even, 
water it thoroughly, soaking to the roots, 
and then sprinkle or sow pure lawn-grass 
seed, especially in any crevices you have 
filled. The kind of seed will vary with the 
locality and circumstances — blue grass is 
almost universally useful, but the seedsman 
will give you another grass-seed for shady 
spots. 

27. To Sow a Lawn. Exactly the same 
preparation should be made as that de- 
scribed in Section 26, when it is proposed Fig. 16. Three-year-old tree in the nur- 

, . sery; dotted lines show how roots are cut in 

to make a new lawn. Dig, fertilize, pul- digging. Upper figure a one-year-old tree; 

1 ^1 I J nearly all the roots are saved, 

verize, rake smooth, sow evenly and care- ' 

fully; sow plentifully; roll as soon as the new grass has had one cutting; fix up 
bare spots with more seed. A good lawn can be well started in three or four months 
under favorable circumstances. April and May, and September, are the best months 
in the latitude of New York. The idea is to sow while active growth is proceed- 
ing, and not in the heat of summer, or just before winter's advent. 

28. Finally, Plant Sonnething! Do it as well as you can, upon these or better 
hints; but plant anyway, even if you cannot do it all as you would wish. With 
some effort, some success is certain. Make the effort for a part of Beautiful Amer- 
ica, and may your success be out of all proportion to the endeavor! 

J. H. McF. 





Fig. 1 7. Method of rolling up old sod and regrading a poor slope 
[15] 



MAR 25 1004 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDDDTl'^JESET 



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